The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the inventors hereof, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, is neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
G.hn is a communications protocol typically used for home networking. This protocol is typically used for communicating information over various types of wired mediums (e.g., telephone wiring, coaxial cables and power lines). The G.hn Media Access Control (MAC) uses a protocol for communicating information using OFDM using a time division multiple access (TDMA) architecture, Transmission Opportunities (TXOPs) are scheduled for the various devices. Although the typical G.hn protocol allows point-to-point (P2P), point-to-multipoint (P2MP) or multipoint-to-multipoint (MP2MP or mesh) topologies, only half-duplex communications are enabled. Accordingly, inasmuch as only one device is able to transmit information to one or more other devices at a particular frequency and at a particular moment in time, there are inherent inefficiencies that slow down communications.